Page 63
“Bloody Christ,” June exclaimed, cringing visibly.
“Yes. Enid knew the operation would be expensive, but she worked extra hours for a year, in terrible pain, to earn the money. And, since there was no bank that would let a woman open an account for herself, she asked her employer to keep her earnings safe in the business’s cash box.”
“Lord save us,” June said grimly, realizing where the story was heading.
“Yes. When Enid calculated she’d finally earned enough to have the surgery, she asked the dressmaker for her savings.”
“But she wouldn’t give her the money,” June guessed.
Reina nodded. “The dressmaker said her husband had a gambling habit, and now there was only enough cash left for the running of the business. She couldn’t pay Enid what she was owed. And Enid had no proof of their private agreement about holding her money for safekeeping. Even worse, by that point Enid’s health had deteriorated until she could no longer work. So the dressmaker dismissed her.”
“Heartless bitch.”
“Yes. Which is why I can’t blame Enid for taking the money on her way out. It was rightfully hers, after all. She went straight to the surgeon, had the operation, and was arrested for thievery before she’d even left the hospital.”
“Poor Enid,” June said.
“Yes. The point is, I have no concerns that she might steal again. None at all. In spite of her criminal conviction, the additional information drastically changed the theoretical trajectory.”
“Is all that your fancy way of saying I should take up with Mad?” June demanded.
“I’m only saying you should take all the variables into consideration.”
“Variables,” June muttered. She stood and retrieved a damp dishrag she’d left on the table. “You know what, Queenie? I used to think economics was airy-fairy twaddle. But now? . . . I’m bloody sure of it.”
Chapter Fifteen
A Gentlemanly Sort
No talking, no looking, no touching,” June lectured Mad on the way to the cookery school. “Stay out of everyone’s way. Remember your manners—” She was forced to pause as the hansom cab jolted violently over a section of cobbled road. Despite the leaf springs mounted on the axles, the bouncing threatened to catapult her right out the cab’s open side. Before she could blink, one of Mad’s arms shot across her front. He gripped a metal handle bolted to the interior and kept his arm there as a kind of safety rail. As June held on to it, she was impressed by the depth and power of the muscles beneath his coat sleeve, as hard as iron stove-plates.
The wheels returned to the relatively smooth macadam paving as she continued, “Don’t go breaking no pencils or scaring no ladies. And don’t eat no food without asking. Not a crumb, even if you think no one wants it.”
“What if it falls on the floor?”
“No. Don’t eat nothing off the floor.”
June couldn’t believe she had agreed to bringing this juggernaut of destruction, this brakeless human express train, to her cookery class. She was risking her entire future. The problem was that, left on his own, Mad might end up murdering someone, even by accident. She couldn’t live with it on her conscience if he were sent back to Millbank.
“Before we get there,” Mad said, “I got something to tell you what I learnt today.”
“What is it?”
“Mr. Pembroke and me was talking and figured out I’m Welsh.”
“What?” June gave him a baffled glance.
“In Wales, y’see, when we say the two parts of my name together, it’s ‘Maddock.’ ” He shrugged. “Turns out English folk don’t know how to say their alphabet proper. But once you learn something wrong, it’s hard to learn it right.”
“Maddock,” June repeated, feeling a twinge of remorse as she recalled what she’d said earlier about his name. “I hope you ain’t turning Welsh on my account.”
“No, I been Welsh from the start. Just didn’t know it ’til now.”
The hansom cab turned onto Rose Street, which was just wide enough for a single vehicle to pass through, and stopped in front of the cookery school.
Most of the classes were held during the day, but evening classes were offered for women who couldn’t attend otherwise. The evening students were taught by the school’s superintendent herself, Mrs. Bannsright, and her assistant Mrs. Blot.
“We’re late,” June fretted as she climbed down from the hansom cab. The windows of the school were lit, and there was movement behind the shutters. The building had that closed-and-sealed look of class having started. Oh, hell. Her innards felt like they were being pounded in a dough bowl.
